Helmke, of the Brady Campaign, said the group suggested to Washington that it rework its gun laws rather than press on with an appeal. A broad Supreme Court ruling on the Second Amendment could jeopardize a variety of laws, including waiting periods for handgun sales and California’s machine gun ban, he said.

I understand why The Brady Campaign would want that to happen. Strategically, it made sense to reword the laws to be near-prohibition, similar to NYC, and force us to go back to court with a weaker case.

But Fenty had to do what he had to do, politically. Fenty isn’t President of The Brady Campaign, he’s Mayor of Washington DC. It might not be the rational thing for their side, but politics are seldom rational.

“This is the capital of the United States of America,” Barnes said. “What kind of message are we sending when you say we want more guns?”

10 Responses to “Bradys Tried to Talk Fenty Out of It?”

I dunno if this story is right, though. If it is, Brady doesn’t have a good understanding of practical law. The District Court left a remarkably strong decision that would leave a hell of a precedent in there: at least enough to challenge federal laws, if not to end up with a later incorporation in some circuits.

Letting it go to the SCOTUS will take up a lot of NRA capital, and almost certainly result in a milder verdict than the DC court’s version did. It’ll make national precedent, but so did Miller, and we all know how effective it’d be to show the Ninth Circuit that a sawed-off shotgun had some militia use.

A lot of Heller’s arguments have been worded in ways we’re gonna regret in ten or twenty years, but the case is tactically strong for just DC, and not bad in the short-term on a national level.

It’ll be milder, but it’ll be the beginning. From there forward it gets harder for the Brady’s. DC Circuit’s ruling probably wouldn’t threaten much in the way of federal gun laws, but a SC ruling would put all their pet city and state gun control laws under scrutiny. Suddenly, all 9 federal circuits are wide open. Who knows what will happen?

If I were Paul Helmke or Peter Hamm, I’d be crapping my pants over this.

Plain intellectual honesty isn’t on their side. It’s pretty much a given that they’ll lose to a degree at the SCOTUS, simply because the results of the collective rights concept are just plain ugly. A Supreme Court doing so would effectively bugger the National Guard and Reserves, and that’s not something they can afford to do right now.

All the Federal Courts would be wide open… but they’re largely decided right now, and they’ve not changed much since they first pissed one way or the other on the Second. The Ninth and Tenth Circuits aren’t going to switch sides.

I’ll admit I’m no legal scholar, but I was under the belief that a held Heller from DC only would make an incorporation move easier later.

If the Supreme Court rules in favor of Heller, the circuit courts will have to switch sides. It then becomes precedent for all the federal circuit courts. The risk is, the ruling will probably be narrow, so hostile circuits like the 9th, will probably just go “Well, it’s an individual right but…”

Or it’ll be wide, like Miller, and the folks will say it’s an individual right but doesn’t apply.
Sorry, Sebastian. I’ve read the texts. It took a lot of two-faced work to go from Miller‘s “The signification attributed to the term Militia appears from the debates in the Convention, the history and legislation of Colonies and States, and the writings of approved commentators. These show plainly enough that the Militia comprised all males physically capable of acting in concert for the common defense” to the Ninth Circuit’s “Because the Second Amendment does not confer an individual right to own or possess arms, we affirm the dismissal of all claims brought pursuant to that constitutional provision.”
It’s not hard to believe that lower court politicals will effectively overturn higher court decisions.

That’s not a bad or particularly surprising thing — we’re going to have to win against them again sooner or later, and a SCOTUS decision plainly and clearly on our side certainly won’t hurt even with those folk plainly ignoring it — but I wouldn’t expect Heller alone to make them change.

I will be surprised if SCOTUS grants cert. The court does not have a history of returning rights to the people at the expense of the powers of government.

It would be very difficult for them to avoid such if they hear the case. I suspect political cowardice will win the day and cert will be denied.

Thereby meaning Heller would apply only in D.C. rather than upsetting the apple carts of all the other venues with similar laws. I just don’t see them as having the courage to do the right thing. I hope I am wrong, but their track record is against them.

I will be surprised if SCOTUS grants cert. The court does not have a history of returning rights to the people at the expense of the powers of government.

Yep. That’s why this is such a gamble. I won’t be entirely upset if they refuse to grant cert.

But Heller/Parker would only apply in DC, but that’s actually good, because the federal government can be sued where it resides. You can go after federal gun control laws in DC, even if the “harm” happened in another circuit.

I wouldn’t be entirely dissappointed if the SC denies Cert. By denying Cert, they have actually made a really strong District Court judgement stronger. They’ve basically said, that the District Court didn’t make any mistakes that need correcting.

Given that, as pointed out above, with the current District Court Judgement intact, it would be possible to sue the federal government using Parker as a precedent.

This could put almost all federal gun control laws in dire jeopardy ( which is where they belong ).

It may not help much with the state and local laws, but it could certainly help get the federal monkey off our backs.